


Summer Paradise

by NegativeDiva



Category: DREAM!ing (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beach, Based on Shigure and Yanagi's seasonal gacha, Beaches, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Summer Vacation, alternative universe, i guess i don't know, merman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-10-06 01:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NegativeDiva/pseuds/NegativeDiva
Summary: It was just like any other summer, it felt like any other summer with his friends, maybe a little different having part of his friends working around, but still the same old summer he loved to relax. However, after a storm hit the beach one night, something very interesting falls on the hand of Shinya and now he feels like his life will never be the same.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I remember my girlfriend telling me that some people were theorizing, before the card was out, that the awaken version of Shigure and the dolphin would be him as a merman and I was digging for it! Like, come on! He is so freaking beautiful and just... YOU GUYS LOST THE CHANCE! And to make it better, someone actually did draw Yanagi as one, so I was like... "This is unfair! Give Shigure his pretty merman visual!"... For now I didn't do it, by pure laziness, but I did actually write something EXTREMLY rushed after watching Aquamarine (the movie) and having this idea. 
> 
> So YEAH! Everyone may be a lot OOC because my knowledge of Dream!ing is not the best and I totally need to finish the first season, because the second involves those two and I need to cry out all those feelings! 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

Oh, the summer breeze, announcing the start of the hot season and the break from school. It was a wonderful season indeed, and even more wonderful was the sight of the relaxing beach. If he could actually relax in there during this summer, he would feel at ease but knowing his mother the peace wouldn't last so long. Being the son of a famous doctor had it's disadvantages, principally when Shinya just wanted to live a life like the others and not like some sort of guinea pig for his mother's shenanigans. For now, he was enjoying the beach watching over some of his friends playing inside the water.

"Hey! YumaPi!!" The orange haired boy who was in the water screamed to the boy next to Shinya who had a sketchbook and pencil in hands and had his eyes focused on the paper filled with sketches "YumaPi! Take a break!! Come in the water!!"

"Ah, Nito…" The boy looked up to look to his friend for a moment "Sorry, I'm not exactly a fan of water…"

"Oh! Come on! Even Bakamaru came in!!" Followed by this the green haired boy splashed the water on him.

"Shut up, shitty bunny! I didn't came in because of you." And so the two of the boys started to throw and splash water on one another making Shinya giggle as he saw the scene at the beach.

It was so good to have this time with his friends, he wished other friends of his, like Shion, could had stayed around to enjoy the beach summer but they had to go somewhere and it ended up just the four of them. The redhead hoped that at least by the end of summer they all could make to the party that the small store next to the beach was going to make, it would be a memory that he was sure that Issei would like to record!

Thinking about his friends seemed to take that long of time since now Senri and Takaomi had gone out of the water, still bickering with each other. He wondered how to calm his friends and looking behind he got reminded of something. Another one of his classmates had started a part-time job at the aquarium of the city, thinking about it made he want to take his friends there and enjoy the scenario, and while they were at there that's what he purposed.

Senri said yes right away, convinced Takaomi with some reverse logic, and Yuma accepted the idea once he could finally draw things underwater without having to put his feet on it.

The aquarium was really beautiful and right by the entrance the familiar faces greeting them was warming. 

"Wait! Rintaro you're also here?" The redhead asked surprised but still happy to see his friend.

"Yeah, Rin-chan decided to work here to give me more trouble." Approaching them the figure of the silver haired boy with a lollipop on his mouth made his smile grow even more 

"Kumarin-senpai working at an aquarium?" Senri questioned while thinking about what kind of disasters the dangerous Kuma Rintaro would do by staying in a place like that "If Asagiri-senpai is here and Kumarin-senpai is here does that mean—?"

"Issei and Jin are not around yet" a pop sound was heard once Mikage took the lollipop out of his mouth "But you could say he convinced them to come here. It's a shame Chizu-chan won't be here"

All the conversation about his classmates and friends started to give Shinya a warm feeling. He felt happy there, it was like he was really at a place he could call home. During the entire guide through the aquarium, hearing his friends laughing and talking about the summer party it felt so good to be around and feel like he is part of something. However a worried sigh coming from the silver haired boy made all of them stop a bit, looking to him wondering what could had happened for such a sigh.

Mikage didn't even bothered to say much, just a look to the sky and everything was clear to them.

A summer storm was coming around.

With the calls of Rintaro saying on how they totally should stay and how things would totally be alright, Mikage send them off by telling them that he had to prepare for the storm. Shinya was quick to notice the worry on his face and in a hurry took his friends to their homes so he could go back to his.

Opening his door he felt relieved to not see his mother around and quickly got ready to the storm by closing the windows and making sure nothing important was outside. His summer house was right by the beach, which meant it would be affected really badly.

By the middle of the storm no signal of his mother, but his worries were soon gone once she told him that she wouldn't be coming home as it was impossible to go out of the hospital by now. He simply decided to dip on his bed and wait for the storm to end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this chapter was bigger?? I dunno, I just took a while till I felt like it was okay to be a full chapter lol  
Anyway, I hope this is going well and not so OOC... I really don't know if this is THAT good.  
I would like to say I loved to write Mikage on this chapter.  
Enjoy.

The morning came faster than he expected and going out of his house he could seem some of the damage done by some really big waves that could had hit the back part of the house. Luckily it had just a pool and the worst that happened was a bunch of sand, seaweeds and sea water being mixed there. He should clean that up before his mother came home, he thought. It would be better even to avoid some fuss about it later and getting forced to do it in a worse way. 

A look at the pool and the seaweeds there covered such a long part of the place that he wondered if he would need to call someone to suck the pool's water in order to clean all that up. A sigh came out of his mouth while cleaning the place around the area, and without noticing his feet had slipped on a seaweed making him fall right inside the pool. 

Oh, geez! His clumsiness. He forgot about it for a second.

The redhead tried to find the end of the pool in order to push himself up to the surface but before he could do so, a presence nearby him made him stop this plan for a second to look up. Thinking it could be a fish that ended up there by accident, Shinya was caught by surprise seeing a pair of two different colored eyes.

A person?!

His despair was made clear and as he couldn't find anything to push his feet up, he tried to swim back to the surface, hands around his waist made him even more shocked. He tried to struggle, however it hadn't take long to see he was already by the pool's edge totally out of the water.

"Forgive me, did I scare you by any means?" A voice coming from his side called. His brown eyes quickly looking to the side to see the sight of a boy by his age, white and straight short hair with different colored eyes, one being a dark grayish tone and the other a dark green one. His appearance was definitely so delicate and elegant that Shinya for one mere of a second forgot that this guy was just on his pool for some reason.

"H-Hey!" The redhead tried to raise his voice in order to take out the guy inside his pool, he felt his cheeks burn looking to the beautiful face of the stranger he just met, but he shouldn't be focusing on it right now "What are you doing inside other's pools!"

"Oh, I'm sorry… It was the first body of water that I found nearby where I was…" Shinya noticed as the stranger talked something has been moving near him 

"What are you t—!!" Before any other word came to Shinya's mouth, he finally was able to see what was moving so nearby the boy. It was a tail. A fish tail. But it seemed a different one than the usual fish tails he had known from his biology books… So that meant something… "H-Hey, what is this?" He pointed to the only transparent part in the pool filled by seaweeds, the part that he could see the fish tail he saw before. 

"Oh…" the tail came out of water once he was called the attention "This? It is my tail…"

A bunch of thoughts came at once in Shinya's mind, he didn't know what to do and it didn't feel real at all. Was it a dream? Was it reality? There was a mermaid in his pool? Well… a merman, as it was a boy. But aren't those a myth? Those things shouldn't exist in real life, so it should be a dream and until now he must be sleeping. So he did the only thing he could think right now, put his head on the ground, lay down and try to fall asleep to wake up on his bed as if nothing of this had happened.

"Are you okay?" It didn't feel like a dream, there was a hand touching him right now. It's wet, he is feeling this sensation, so how could it be a dream! "Human, I didn't mean to bother you—"

"How can you be a merman!!" Shinya quickly sat looking to the boy with the most confused eyes he could make. He wanted at least a bit of explanation

"I suppose Humans are not familiar with us? Weird…" the redhead wanted to ask about why he felt like humans would be familiar with half humans half fish people, but before he could do the boy started to talk about himself "My name is Shigure, I am a prince of the ocean we are nearby, the next in the throne line for the kingdom. I know it may seem weird a prince running away from their kingdom… But I came here because I was so curious about stories I heard about humans that I really wanted to see it with my own eyes." 

Shinya didn't want to tell the boy that the fact he was weirded out was because right now he still felt like he was dreaming while talking with a merman, but to try going with the so called prince, he nodded his head while hearing everything he had to say. It felt really amazing how curiosity would had taken even others species to research what they didn't know, but right now this had one small problem… Maybe not small, but a huge one. His mother wouldn't react that well to a new species that no human had laid eyes before roaming freely in their pool. Shigure had to go, and fast.

"It's really nice and all, but for your own safety… We need to take you out of here…"

"Why that would be?"

"My mother wouldn't react really well with you here, so can't you go out?"

"... N-No… This would be really a problem for you?"

"... M-Mostly for you… But, well, we need to take you to a safe place."

He soon put his head to think, as Shigure calmly swimmed around the pool as if he tried to find a spot to hide there. 

A place with a lot of water. The aquarium maybe?

He knew that Mikage would probably not allow this, but at the same time this was his first option and maybe they had tanks they never used? It was worth the try.

"I know a place!" He said getting ready to stand up from the edge "I'll call a friend of mine to help taking you there! It'll be really quick!" 

"Wait!" Shigure took Shinya's leg before he could ever do anything to stand up forcing him to stay sitting. He had a strong grip. "What is your name?"

"Shinya!"

"It was nice to meet you, Shinya!" He gave the redhead the sweetest smile he ever saw. He felt his cheeks burning again. "Thank you for helping me… I hope to see you more while I am here."

"I will visit you every day on that place!"

He said that on impulse, but again he didn't even knew if Mikage would believe on anything he said. It took a while to convince the silver haired boy to leave his job to help him with something weird on his pool and that he totally needed his help. And after a few tries that ended up costing some candies he had to buy later, they were back in Shinya's backyard to take Shigure out and put him in a tank. If his plan was doing well until now, there was no way Mikage would turn back after seeing the truth with his eyes… right?

"Shinya!" The voice came out of the pool making Mikage get a weird face seeing this stranger in Shinya's pool "Is this the friend you went to ask for help?"

"Y-Yes…"

"... You are asking me to take a person out of your pool?" That sarcastic tone of his when he was mad… He doesn't know a thing. "Shin-chan, I don't have this responsibility you know… I really thought this was going to be somet—" as he kept talking, Shigure came out of the pool, trying to sit down on the edge so he could be taken by the other silver haired boy who had his words cut by seeing Shigure's beautiful white and blue tail. ".... What."

The lollipop fell from Mikage's mouth in Surprise to be seeing what he was seeing… If Mikage was seeing that then it definitely wasn't a dream, he should convince himself of that by now. Shigure took his tail out as well and smiled shyly to the boy with glasses, who before could let Shigure introduce himself turned to Shinya and started to ask questions.

"Shinya, what does that mean?" It was the first time he heard Mikage talking like this. It didn't feel like his usual tone… He didn't even called him Shin-chan

"I don't know… He appeared on my pool last night during the storm…"

"Is this any joke? Is Rintaro in this too?"

"N-No… Rintaro doesn't know anything about this…"

"So what IS this?!"

"Hmm… You two…"

"I-I don't know… It's a merman?"

"I'm seeing! But this is ridiculous! This must be some sort of stupid prank!"

"It isn't, I thought so too…"

"Hey…"

"What you want me to do with this?!"

"I just want a place for him to be… My mother won't like having a merman inside my pool!"

"So you want to put him in the aquarium?"

"Guys!" The screaming voice of the merman was heard and once he had the attention of both boys the sight they had was of a full human Shigure, with two feet instead of the beautiful tail they saw just a minute ago. "Hmm… I didn't know this could happen…"

Every minute that he spent there with that merman felt like something extremely weird, and not much time had pass since they met. Now he was human, but when he was on the water he was a merman… 

Thinking back, Shigure mentioned that he heard from people at his kingdom about stories of humans, but at the same time no human had seen any merman or mermaid before, so maybe this made a bit more sense.

While he was deep in thoughts about what just had happened, Mikage had taken the jacket that was wrapped around Shinya’s waist and gave it to Shigure who holding himself on whatever he could found was able to stand.

“Wear this” He said handing the jacket “Let’s get him some of your clothes, and think better about what to do with it, Shin-chan” and the tone that he knew from him was back. The usual laid back Mikage that even with the sarcastic and ‘I don’t care’ tone, still managed to pass the worrying feeling he had towards his friends.

After helping Shigure with the jacket, they both helped him slowly to walk, and it didn’t take much time for he to figure out how to walk by himself, sometimes he still had to hold on them, but for most of the time he was handling it very well. They quickly dressed him up with clothes that Shinya had and with that the ‘what we’ll do’ talk started.

"We need to take him to a recluse place!" Shinya started while justifying why having a Merman at his pool wouldn't be the best of the ideas as he lived with his mother

"If Jin was here we could just ask for a new tank through Rintaro and we would be fine. I mean, you'll probably want to spend sometime in the water, right fishy?" Mikage said looking to the merman who just looked at him with a not so friendly look.

"It's Shigure. And I guess this would be preferable…" 

"What if during night you don't sneak him in with one of the most hidden tanks od the aquarium?"

"Because those are the deep sea creatures. I doubt he'll feel comfortable there."

Another dead end. It took at least five minutes of silence for it to be broken by someone arriving. It was Shinya's mom. They slowly panicked a bit until the lady opened the door to find Shinya with the two silver haired boys sitting across his room. Before Shinya could say anything, his mom simply laid eyes on the unknown figure of Shigure.

"Who is this new boy?" As if she was suspicious of the mysterious boy who sat on Shinya's bed silently the lady kept staring at him wanting answers. Luckily, Mikage was able to come to the rescue.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Shibasaki. This is my cousin Shigure, He moved to another country with his parents, but recently he came by to visit my family. I was showing him my friends around before going to work. Sorry we stopped by, we got caught in conversation." With all that lies that Mikage told, Shigure just could nod his head and from Shinya's mouth just a nervous laugh could come out as Mikage kept that smile of his.

"Another country, hm…"

"Grazie for having me in, Shinya!" Shigure said trying to cover up for Mikage's lies. "It was a pleasure to talk with you!"

"O-Oh! No problems! I'll be cleaning the pool for now!" He stood up and was ready to get out of his mother's sight with Mikage following right behind saying he should go to work. That's when Shigure has raised his voice again

"Do you mind if I help you?" He must had been feeling guilty for all of the mess he had caused outside and also on Shinya's life right now. Help him cleaning the pool was the least he could do, that's what he thought.

"Shigu-chan, are you sure you don't want to go with me?" Mikage said trying to be sure if this was okay.

"Sure… Shinya seems to he a bit clumsy. When we first saw he had fell on the pool while trying to clean so…"

Shinya could feel his mother's disapproval look with Shigure's words. Oh, how much problem he would get in later for that, but for now he just decided to go outside and clean. Mikage had to go and before disappearing to work he made sure that he would call him later to solve the Shigure problem. That would had to wait, seem…

They went to the backside of the house and cleaning was faster with the help of Shigure somehow. Even if it took a while to tell him what exactly he had to do and how, he seemed to be a quick learner and combined with his hard work everything was done in a matter of seconds. 

For now he just wanted to go out and see his friends, but he couldn't leave Shigure alone wandering on the streets, so the best for now was take him to see the town. And so he did.

Every corner seemed to be something to Shigure feel impressed. Every question he had about the human world he would come closer to Shinya and ask discreetly without looking to suspicious and the redhead would simply tell him what he wanted to know. This felt so different from his usual routine, it didn't feel bad as he felt like he just made another friend, but it surely gave him the goosebumps. 

"Shinya-senpai! Who is this pretty boy with you!" The familiar voice of the orange hair first year came in Shinya's ears. They looked back to see both Senri and Takaomi together but no signal of Yuma… Was he okay?

"Oh, this is Shigure! Mikage's cousin!" He presented Shigure to the boys who had arrived and with the small knowledge of the time he had spent with Shinya the silver haired boy bowed slightly to them. "Shigure, those are Senri and Takaomi! They are from my school! Hmm… But where is Yuma?"

"Mochizuke stayed on the beach. He saw a scene of a random guy flirting with some girls and thought that scene was nice to draw and just stayed there." The green haired boy said while rolling his eyes remembering the scene "I just went to take a game and go back to the beach but this stupid bunny came after me."

"Huh?! I didn't came after you, your self-centered lion! I just came to search for Shinya-senpai in order for us to enjoy the beach!" Senri tried to defend himself

"Then why you came to my house!"

"Because maybe it is my house too! We share rooms after all!"

Those two kept bickering for quite the time making both the boys chuckle. Shinya quickly stopped as he heard the laugh of Shigure, he really was pretty in everything he did, what he should expect from a merman, he thought for himself.

"Why don't we go back to the beach?" The redhead purposed to the boys who were about to get physical with one pinching the cheek of the other. 

With a high pitched 'Yay!' coming from Senri and a sigh coming from Takaomi, the four of them took their path to the beach of the town with Shigure curiously looking around. Shinya noticed how quiet he had became without wanting to ask him things nearby the boys, maybe it was for the best now… He and Mikage already had a lot of trouble trying to hide this secret of Shigure, it was better if no one was suspicious of him by now.

The walk didn't take long, as once they finally around the blue haired boy was spotted still looking to the scene Takaomi had described. It wasn't unusual for people to start flirting with other in middle of a beach, it was actually the normal, Shinya even forgot the many times girls tried to call him out and people had to help him to say no to them because of simply couldn't. What was unusual, though, was the fact Shigure kept staring at the man who was had called Yuma's attention to draw that scene. The redhead couldn't help but feel like he had to ask him what was the problem as he felt like Shigure wasn't doing well, but just a single name came out loud of his mouth making not only Shinya but his friends to look at him.

"Hanabusa?!"


	3. Chapter 3

Green eyes turned to the new arrival on the beach, attentively looking to Shigure who in shock watched the pink haired man surrounded by women of all ages. A cunning smile appeared on his face seeing the white haired boy’s face, so they knew each other really well.

“Hakka!” He waved to him making Shinya look to him extremely confused “I didn’t expect to see you here!”

“Do you know him?” the redhead whispered trying to don’t call much the attention of others around

Seeing all the eyes over him, a nervous feeling hit the merman. His first reaction was to pull his guide to somewhere private, far from the eyes, far from the people, a place where the two of them could talk properly.

“Shigure, what happened?” Shinya kept asking, confused of the reaction 

“I’m sorry, I… Didn’t expect it.” Shigure felt breathless, he didn’t know how to feel about it and neither did the redhead. “Hanabusa is… Someone I know… From my place.” Even if they were alone, the merman kept talking quite ambiguous about his origins as to hide the truth from curious ears that may pop up around them. 

“Maybe he came after you?” 

“No. Hanabusa would never do such a thing…” He gave a deep sigh “He always talked about the surface… But I didn’t imagine this was the beach he would come so often.”

Everything now finally rang on Shinya’s head, remembering of Shigure’s words about mermen coming to the surface and thinking about how this was normal. This was the person who Shigure may had mentioned back then, maybe he was the person who told the merman about the surface world.

In a weird gesture, the redhead took his hands to the shoulders of the boy before him and slowly rubbed it, up and down, trying to calm him from the nervous feeling of meeting someone he knew, from his cover blowing up, the fear of being discovered, maybe.  
“I know how it feels to met someone on the streets you just know from one place!” He said with a smile while looking to Shigure “Sometimes, it feels weird to me see Mikage and the others outside the school… Because, you know, I met them there!” The casualty that Shinya talked started to feel comforting to the white haired boy “But it’s not some monster or anything! It’s just someone you know! You can talk to him normally and just go with the flow! You shouldn’t worry much about this, right?” by the time he stopped talking, the hands of the redhead had gone all the way down his arms, and now it held firmly his hands. “Now, why don’t we go back? Everyone must want to know what just happened!”

Slowly he let himself be guided back to the beach where Shinya’s friends looked worried at them caused by the sudden nervous feelings of the shorter one. Shigure squeezed Shinya’s hand as they approached the group that now was deprived of women. The orange one ran to the duo coming as soon as their silhouettes appeared from far. Looking again to the group, the redhead noticed that the so called Hanabusa was now close to Yuma and somehow it felt like he kept approaching more and more of his friend.

"Shinya-senpai!!" The cry of Senri suddenly woke him up "That weird guy keeps approaching Yumapi!"

"Eh?" Without understanding why the orange haired boy cried he only put his hand on the head of the younger one and pat him "Don't worry, Senri! He may be just wanting to be friends with us!"

Trying to look over the positive side didn't seem the right option as Shigure quickly gave a grumpy sound to his words. He didn't want to think much about it, all he did was sit there with everyone while Takaomi played his game under the parasol with earphones on, Senri glued on him while looking over Yuma who was still drawing and had the Hanabusa guy looking curiously to his drawings from a distance that he was considering quite dangerous, not that he could talk much as he and Shigure spent the time just as close. Talking about the merman he surely wasn't looking that friendly to the new arrival yet, he may still be scared of his cover being blown up on the very first day so he didn't guilt him. 

Time passed until Hanabusa proposed something.

"Why don't we all go to the festival nearby? I heard from the kitties they had a lot of games!" 

He didn't know how he was able to say it and convince everyone, but he was right this was surely better than just stay on the beach and sit around with that gloomy aura. As Senri pulled Yuma with him and Takaomi followed, right behind were he and Shigure walking hand in hand while impressed with the colorful stands and decorations. 

The pink haired one approached them and whispered to him.

"I didn't expect the so diligent Hakka to come out of the water" he told him with a smile. Shinya quickly though about pulling Shigure to his back, but he didn't want to look suspicious

"This isn't your problem, Hanabusa. I came here for my own reasons, unlike you who never is satisfied with playing with the mermaids on our kingdom and comes here to play with more." The redhead watched everything as they talked, Shigure didn't even look to Hanabusa's eyes when talking to him. 

"You make me sound bad like this" he said while giving a giggle "You did the same after all, right?" Green eyes now were set on the redhead right next to Shigure who now had his entire face dyed with the same color of his hair at the guess of Yanagi saying Shigure had been playing with him, what that actually meant?

"Shinya is my guide here, he is helping me while I stay here. Don't talk like this to him."

"Hm?" Hanabusa looked quite confused with the answer of the white haired boy but he kept talking "So, you're staying? Where are you going to stay then?"

"... We still deciding, why you ask?"

"You'll see at sunset…" he then changed his attention to some of the girls on the festival and moved to hit on one of them.

Shigure gave sigh not understanding what was this talk with Hanabusa all about. Shinya couldn't understand as well, he just kept looking to the boy who confusingly looked to the pink haired one.

Right on the first stands, the white haired boy seemed to be pretty interested on the various prizes of the games they had on the festival. Noticing how he seemed to be interested on it, Shinya stopped on one of the stands, a shooting game, and decided to play.

“Which one you want?”

“Huh?” 

“The prizes! I’ll get one for you!” Shigure looked to the various prizes on the stand, stuffed bears and what seemed to be some floaters. One of them had the shape of a dolphin and it had called the attention of the merman. Noticing his eyes shining, Shinya had put the focus on the floater with the dolphin shape. 

Usually he would just try to enjoy it, not put so much focus and end up get the target wrong while even falling because of his clumsy self, but now, he wanted to give it to someone, and because it had a person, that wasn’t him, involved on it, he decided to put his focus on getting it and so, it was shoot, right on the target. 

The shock on Shigure’s eyes seeing the accurate shot of the redhead made him notice that maybe he had overdone it. 

“Here you go!” The clerk of the stand gave him the floater and before he could think anything, Shinya simply gave Shigure the floater with a smile on his face.

“Here! You seemed to had liked it, so I tried to get…” He scanned the place finding a nearby public restroom “Can you give me a second?”

It took him a while to recover from the focus, he washed his face and breathed for a good bunch of seconds. Stepping out he saw that Shigure had been waiting for him on the entrance, he felt bad for leaving the merman for that time. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to leave you waiting!”

“It’s okay, by the time I waited you here I had been seen that humans need it…” 

“Yeah!” 

They came back to walk, but while wandering through the festival, Shigure noticed that Hanabusa quickly ran from a horde of girls that were trying to have him. At first, he thought it may had been because of how he didn’t know how to manage his own relationships, but two minutes later he finally understood what happened.

“Shinya. I need to go back.”

“What?”

“I need to go to the pool!” the desperate look of the boy made Shinya in an impulse take his hand and run to the aquarium.

The walk was quite long but with the hurry it didn't seem so. He didn't even had time to say hey to Rintaro, he quickly ran to Mikage who was closing one of the parts of the aquarium when they arrived. 

"Shin-chan?"

"Mikage, Shigure said he needs to go back to the water!"

"What?" The confused Mikage just looked to the merman as if he waited for an explanation. Quickly scanning the area to see if there was no one around, Shigure folded his pants, showing scales appearing all over his legs. "This isn't good…" he sighed at the sight of the situation.

"What we do?" 

Without waiting Shinya have time to freak out about a place again, Mikage opened the place he just had closed once again. Asking the duo to follow him, he brought them to a big space with chairs surrounding a big open aquarium. He walked over a bridge that had on the middle for what the redhead assumed it was shows the Aquarium offered and looked to Shigure.

"Is this big enough for you?" A serious tone just like the one from this morning was how Mikage talked right now, it felt so weird for Shinya.

"Yes, this should be enough. Thank you!" 

"I'm the one who opens the place, so you don't need to worry of being seen." Shigure nodded his head "Now, take those off. You'll need them tomorrow." 

The merman started to undress slowly and the first thing Shinya could do was face his head the other way. While this happened Mikage tried to annoy him saying there was no need for it, as he already saw Shigure naked that morning, but the redhead couldn't stop thinking that maybe he should give some privacy to him. 

He just dared to open his eyes when a splash was heard. Looking back to the tank, Shigure's tail was now back. Shinya gave a relieved sigh before turning attention to the floater he got for him early that day.

"We can't let this in, you'll need to take it home" once both heard the words of Mikage they couldn't help being a bit down about it, but he was right. 

The white haired boy took the clothes Shigure had used during the day and folded it, and warned he would take care of the clothes until tomorrow. It was time to go, and the redhead was surely a bit down on saying goodbye to the merman, the day with him was quite different from the normal life he longed so much, but it was way better than he could imagine. He promised to him he would come back by the morning to take him and show him a lot of new stuff from the city and the answer he could see from Shigure was a sweet smile and a soft 'thank you' coming from his mouth. 

Mikage closed that place again, now it was just the two of them. Through the glasses Shinya could see his friend looking to him quite weirdly and asked what was the problem. 

"You surely got love-dovey with him, Shin-chan~" at the sound of Mikage's voice, Shinya's eyes just widened and his face dyed into red with the words he said

"T-That's not it! I just met him today and it was fun!! It's nothing like that!"

"Sure, Sure~"

While still annoying him about it, Mikage offered a ride back to the redhead and he accepted as his mother would probably bother him for spending so much time outside doing nothing. But all the ride long he just wondered if it was okay to leave Shigure alone like this…


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead lol  
I just kinda didn't know what to write for a while and had focused on other stuff  
But here we go, another chapter now we new appearances~

The night veil covered the city. 

Shigure had been swimming for a while now on the tank Mikage had left him, which were the dolphins one. He had quite the fun with them, but now he decided to float a bit while looking to the stars on the sky.

He couldn't believe on what he was doing.

Running away from home just for a simple curiosity of seeing how were humans. He surely would be dead once he came back to the ocean… But what if he didn't want to come back? For one single day, he had so much fun discovering new things about the world he lived and even about himself, he got quite fond of the human who helped him and he finally could understand just a bit of why Hanabusa was always coming to the surface. He wondered what more the human world could provide him and he was excited to see.

A sound was heard. It wasn't him, it wasn't the dolphins, so it must had come outside.

The noises were of someone opening the door. It couldn't be Mikage as he said he would come during morning and he was sure Shinya didn't had access to that place during that hour. 

Steps were coming closer, that meant Shigure had to hide somewhere. He dived in the pool again, quickly going to the bottom of the tank. Soon the impact on the water and the bubbles made around it, made clear to Shigure that someone was there, someone had entered in the tank, did someone saw him? 

It was the figure of a boy, he judged to be around the same age as Shinya and Mikage and he… started to swim with the dolphins. 

He was sure humans didn't do that normally like this, but he didn't know what to expect as well. Once the boy started to move in his direction, one of the dolphins in the tank approached Shigure, he asked for the dolphin's help to move while hiding from the boy and with the confirmation of the creature, he took it's fin and moved to the other side of the tank.

Unluckily for him the boy noticed the unusual movement and looked to the dolphin who was hiding him. This wasn't good. He quickly swim far from the boy who came back to the surface.

Shigure was sure he saw him. 

The next morning started with knocks on his door. Shinya usually would wake up early because of his usual clumsiness but seemed that not even hitting the floor too hard while falling from the bed was able to wake him up this time.

He opened his room door to find Mikage and a quite sad Shigure behind him. 

"Eh? How did you get in here?" Shinya said quite surprised with the visit

"Your mother didn't close the front door when she went out, so I walked in" the glasses one answered while looking to the merman "Here, take him with you again" without answering Mikage turned his back and went to the front door where his bike was stopped. Shinya and Shigure followed him

"Why you're in such a hurry?" The redhead surely was questioning a lot today.

"Jin-san called me. The dorm head arrived and I promised from the start of the summer I would take him."

"Issei is here?!"

“Yes, They came earlier.” Mikage put his helmet and said goodbye to the duo without even waiting for an answer.

The bike run out in direction to what Shinya assumed was the bus station. He looked to the merman and took his hand back in the house, where he took the boy to the pool he was on the day before.

Shigure lifted his head once he saw the place and gave a small smile seeing the dolphin floater they had got on the festival.

"You seem a bit down, if you want we can stay on the pool today! My mother is staying on the hospital" the redhead started to stretch his body in order to take the floater. Seeing the dolphin shape, Shigure started to remember the night he spent on the tank… He needed to tell the redhead about it.

"Shinya, I…" before he could say something, Shinya fell inside the pool. "Shinya!!" The boy came back to the surface and gave a nervous smile to the boy outside 

"Sorry, but hey! The water is good! You should come in! I promise I won't look until you get in!" 

Hearing the boy, Shigure couldn't not agree as he needed to relax a bit from the startle of yesterday. The white haired one started to undress putting his outfits in a corner that he thought water wouldn't reach and slowly entered inside the pool. His white tail reappeared and once it covered all the lower part of his body he touched the redhead to inform he could look.

Shinya ended up taking the clothes he was as well, leaving him only with his underwears. It was fun to spend time with the merman in the pool. He usually wouldn't stay there long as he would prefer to stay with his friends, but the fact Shigure was there made him forget for a minute why he always preferred to stay outside home. 

While Shigure and him were relaxing while holding on the floater, the white haired one started to talk.

"Shinya, something happened yesterday…" the serious tone of the merman made Shinya look to him a bit worried. "I think someone saw me on the tank yesterday…"

"What?" The surprise made the redhead fall back on the water, before Shigure could say something he came back to the surface to hear the story of the white haired boy.

He then proceeded to tell all the story of the night he spent on the tank. How he heard the door, how someone jumped inside and started to swim with the dolphins and how he tried to run away and he probably think the boy inside the tank had seen him.

"Maybe someone who worked in the aquarium and was checking the dolphins?" Shinya tried to think but nothing came in his mind 

"I don't know…"

"We should tell Mikage about it!" The redhead went out of the pool ready to get dry and direct himself to the aquarium.

After drying themselves, drying Shigure's tail so it could turn into legs and putting some clothes (Shinya had still take time to have a shower before go) they direct themselves to the aquarium. 

Two new figures were present at the aquarium entrance. A tall and build man with purple hair slicked back and another one with smaller stature next to the tall one with a really thin body and a light blue and long hair that was beautifully braided. Noticing who they were, Shinya gave a slightly surprise noise, probably not expecting those two there.

Approaching, a voice could be heard and this one the redhead was sure didn't belong to the two over there, confirming that a third person was at the entrance.

"But I'm serious, Jin!"

"Rintaro-san, I respect and support you in various things. I've gave you permission to even work here and I never complained about you being inside the tanks to swim with the animals inside of there. But this is beyond reality and I am not putting up with it." The deep voice of the tall man was firm, serious and quite angry. Shinya never thought he would hear Jin like this before.

Getting close to the entrance, Shinya could see Rintaro who had been talking with Jin. Shigure tapped the redhead's shoulder and whispered on his ear

"Shinya, that's the boy I saw… The green haired one…" 

"What?!"

Jin looked to the side seeing the two of them. Seeing the new face, the man gave a deep sigh making Rintaro look to where Jin's eyes were looking.

"Shibasaki, who is this boy?" The purple one said looking serious like always

"Huh… this is…"

"I'm Mikage's cousin." Shigure said by himself, remembering the excuses said yesterday "I came from Italy to spend some time with my cousin, but he was quite busy so he asked me to stay with Shinya."

Rintaro looked deeply into Shigure's eyes, who slowly and quietly panicked inside. But he didn't seem to remember the face of the merman, to the opposite, his reaction was quite… Different.

"Mika-chan’s cousin?!” The eyes of the boy were shining as he approached the white haired one “Oh, it definitely comes from his family, such a pretty person like this!” without understanding the reaction of Rintaro, Shigure just whispered a really awkward thank you and came back to hide behind Shinya

“Huh… Such a pathetic reaction…” the light blue haired boy who hadn’t move until now, had finally said something. The big hand of Jin had rested on his shoulder making the boy turn around to see the newcomer as well as to make the tall one’s position comfortable. 

Beautiful Red eyes looked to Shigure, making the boy flinch for a moment squeezing Shinya’s hand even more. Oh yeah, they were holding hands all this time and he forgot, it had became something so natural to him that he barely notice at that point.

Shinya then started to say who all of those people were to Shigure. The tallest one the redhead presented as being one of his seniors, Ryugasaki Jin. A powerful name in Japan, according to them, so much that this small City by the sea was practically put up by his family and the aquarium where they were standing right now was none other than a simple gift for his butler to enjoy his free time admiring the beauty of the oceans, and this was no small aquarium! The merman had slept on one of the tanks and he could say how big it was! His butler, the boy with red eyes, was called Maki Chizuru. He seemed to be extremely close to his 'master' and Shigure definitely notice how they had this secret caring for one another that they didn't want to show, probably because of their positions. The small talk he had with Chizuru gave him the impression that the butler surely didn't care about anyone but Jin. 

And then… There was him.

Kuma Rintaro.

Shinya couldn't even explain who he was, but shortened the explanation in just one word.

"Daredevil…" the voice tone while talking about the green haired boy changed, maybe because he worried about Rintaro discovering Shigure's secret by pure craziness. 

The merman noticed the change on the voice tone, but luckily the others around there didn't even bother, caring more about how Shinya described Rintaro and thinking it was funny. 

"Shin-chan described me like that, but you know~" he started talking, approaching a bit of Shigure "I want to be a hero, and what Hero won't take great lengths, right~?" Jin chuckled at the sound of Rintaro's words.

New people started to arrive in the aquarium and so, Rintaro had to go back to work as apparently there was no signs of Mikage coming back yet. The fact his friend wasn't back on the aquarium yet worried a bit, as he went out early this morning and soon the clock would hit 12:00. Jin was quite disappointed with how long Mikage was taking to bring Issei and at the same time Chizuru kept saying how stupid he was and how he definitely wasn't suitable for doing those favors to Jin. 

At the sound of the light blue haired boy complaining about the glassed one's punctuality, Shinya noticed the first years coming with Hanabusa. He then remembered with the discovery that Shigure couldn't stay out of water after sunset, he totally forgot about telling his friends where they were going and all those sort of things.

"Shinya-senpai!!" Senri was the first one to approach and speak "What happened yesterday? You didn't even said bye to us!"

"Sorry, Shigure told me he had a curfew and didn't notice the hour, so I ran to take him back to Mikage!" He said with a smile while trying to cover up for his mistake of the other day

"Ooh! That's really bad!" The orange one started with a quite dramatic act while talking about the curfew and for Shigure it was quite funny how he did. "It must be so hard to be in a new place and having so limited time to visit! I'm so sorry for you, Shigure-san! But I promise for the while you are here I will do my best to show you all the cool places to hang out!"

"Quit the act, his parents gave him the curfew because he is in a new place they don't know anything about." Takaomi started to talk "They don't want their children in danger of getting lost or in the hands of strangers."

"Shut up, Bakaomi! It still a bad thing!"

Hanabusa started to laugh while hearing the two of them fighting and Yuma opened his sketchbook trying to think on scenes for his manga. Shinya expected that next to Jin, for being from his dorm at school, Senri and Takaomi would be a bit more down on the fighting but then he looked back and Jin was gone, probably had entered the aquarium to wait for Mikage with Issei. 

"Anyway, what Shinya-senpai is doing here?" Senri asked while cutting the fight with Takaomi all of sudden making the green haired one extremely angry at him

"Oh! I came because Shigure wanted to see the aquarium!" Hearing Shinya's words Shigure just nodded his head 

All the boys, but Yuma who was concentrated on drawing the aquarium's entrance, started to look to the redhead as he just said something suspicious, the thing Shinya noticed the most was the smile coming from Hanabusa. He didn't know what they were thinking, they kept looking to how close he and Shigure were for the past two days, and maybe they were, but it was mostly because Shigure was on Shinya's pool yesterday and they were together from the very start of this weird idea.

"Why don't we get in together then! I would love to see inside as well, and I'm sure Yuma would like to draw inside there" the pink haired one said while putting his hand on Yuma's shoulder and getting dangerously close. Shinya started to feel a bit worried about him.

Being his roomate at school made the redhead have this brotherly relationship with Yuma taking care of him for not eating much and showing him things he didn't understand from the huge city they lived in, so it was normal for Shinya to see Hanabusa, who in Shigure's words wasn't exactly the best of a person, that close to him. 

He was definitely worried on having a merman all over the boy he considered a little brother, but something kept him calm… 

The soft touch of Shigure's hand somehow kept giving him this calm that he never ever felt, it felt good… Discreetly as everyone started to walk in front of them to get in the aquarium, he slowly caressed the merman's hand with his thumb feeling how soft was his skin…

"Shinya?" Whispering next to his ear, the redhead woke up to reality

"I-I'm sorry, Shigure! I didn't mean…"

"Something worries you?" Like if he could read his thoughts, Shigure kept looking at him worried wondering what made him so uneasy. He had so many friends, but not someone that could read his thoughts that easy as Shigure. He wondered if that was some sort of Merman thing…

He just brushed it off and got inside the aquarium together. Even if they had came here before, it always felt nice to visit it once in a while. Not to mention that every tank they moved to, Shigure would tell Shinya a story he had in the ocean. 

Jin had put the most effort he could in that aquarium, the entire ambiance re-created perfectly what Shinya imagined would be under the sea, hundreds of tanks carrying hundreds of species, some that the redhead was even unfamiliar of, he wondered if Shigure could feel that as well, maybe he missed being at his home, he couldn't know exactly, he thought about asking but it didn't take long for him to remember there was another merman here.

His eyes looked to the side were Hanabusa was posing on front of one of the tanks so Yuma could draw it. The white haired noticed how he was doing and to put him at ease just softly spoke on his ear.

"Don't worry, Hanabusa wouldn't do anything to your friend…"

"Are you sure?"

"He usually plays with girls, not boys… So he won't do anything to your friend." Hearing those words actually put him a bit on ease, but the worry would be there yet

They finally arrived at a shallow pool found at the middle of the building, Senri had brought them all the way over there for this specific reason. There were two small nurse sharks (How Jin was able to get one was unclear), it was something new that was brought to the aquarium where visitants could, if they were courageous enough, caress the shark. 

"You didn't try it on the first day, will you even do it now?" Takaomi asked while getting behind Senri in the line to caress it 

"I just didn't do it because it moved, okay?" The orange haired boy said sulking while waiting the lady who was having her turn "You also were all scared of doing it, huh, Shishimaru? Why are you trying now?"

"Tch— I wasn't scared! The idea of touching a shark is just stupid!"

"But those aren't really dangerous sharks…" Shigure said making all the eyes turn to him "I-I've traveled to where those sharks live before, so I know they usually don't attack humans…"

"Yeah, you're right!" Someone who wasn't in their group started saying "Rintaro-san was the one who actually gave Jin this idea! It's usual in America for aquariums to let you pet all sorts of animals so he asked for a shark, and Jin couldn't say no!"

The group turned to the person who talked to them.

"Torasawa-senpai!" Senri said with such a happy and energetic voice that Shinya couldn't help but giggle.

"Sorry for taking so long" Mikage said with his usual smile while approaching the group with the new presence "We took a bit longer than the expected~"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally was able to finish this chapter, I had been holding this for so long because I just didn't know where to go  
I'm thankful for my friends for helping me on writing this because if it wasn't them I don't know how bad this thing would go!  
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> Again, it's rushed, it's not somethnig amazing, it's just a self fullfilment fanfic, BUT I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED!!  
I still want to write but I don't know until when I'll do so, please hope that I'll end this fanfic... It would be THE FIRST FANFIC WITH MULTI CHAPTERS I WOULD FINISH =D   
For the best pray for me.
> 
> I won't promise updates very frequently since my mood swings a lot for writing and I have other projects besides this one, so yeah! Still! I hope you enjoy!


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